Components and assemblies of any products are commonly designed on established computer aided design platforms, abbreviated as CAD platforms. CATIA, which is a CAD software suite from Dassault Systèmes; NX, formerly known as NX Unigraphics or usually just U-G, a CAD software package originally developed by Unigraphics, now a Siemens Software; Inventor, developed by Autodesk, a 3D CAD software; are few examples amongst many more CAD platform. There are also several Product Lifecycle Management, abbreviated as PLM or Product Data Management, abbreviated as PDM software available. ENOVIA from Dassault Systèmes, Windchill originally from Windchill Technology Inc. now from PTC Inc. likewise are examples of PLM platforms. While products are modeled and developed on CAD platforms, the corresponding CAD as well as Non-CAD information, collectively called as engineering information is structurally kept in PLM platforms.
A great deal of experience and knowledge resides in any product development organization and its associates, but which is not readily known to individual engineers who design products. Organizations create knowledge based rules which are made available to product designers in the form of check lists or even computer driven systems. Patent No: EP0985992B1 comprehensively elaborates such art giving a host of engineering rules in the Figures. Systems exist for validating rules by reverse application, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,595,171B2.
Many a time, product development Organizations use CAD system and PLM platforms from different software companies and in such a case, uploading and downloading to and from any CAD to any PLM may or may not be always possible. Patent publication No: US2011/0264591 A1 discloses art of integrating a heterogeneous design system and a PLM system, mainly for non-graphic data.
Persons skilled in the art know well that different CAD platforms have different differential advantages. Consequently, different organizations have preference for different CAD platforms as well as PLM platforms. For example, CATIA is generally a preferred CAD platform by automobile industry where more surface geometry needs to be handled, while ProE is seen to be popular in organizations indulged in core engineering products where less of surface geometry needs to be dealt with.
There are design houses across the world which undertake product development assignment for different organizations. These design houses deal with different CAD and PLM platforms as per preference and requirement of their clients. Such a scenario brings complex problem of deployment of organizational knowledge on different platforms matrix.
Even within an organization, situation of use of different CAD platforms and PLM is not ruled out.
There are situations when designs need to be audited based on company's guidelines and expertise, without disclosing the product details and CAD geometry.
There are no known software aided tools for validation and or audit of multi-platform based product designs.